To extend our memories by monuments, whose death we daily pray
for, and whose duration we cannot hope, without injury to our
expectations in the advent of the last day, were a contradiction
to our belief.

You shall not pile, with servile toil,
Your monuments upon my breast,
Nor yet within the common soil
Lay down the wreck of power to rest,
Where man can boast that he has trod
On him that was "the scourge of God."

Marble statues, engraved with public inscriptions, by which the
life and soul return after death to noble leaders.
[Lat., Incisa notis marmora publicis,
Per quae spiritus et vita redit bonis
Post mortem ducibus.]

If we work upon marble it will perish. If we work upon brass
time will efface it. If we rear temples they will crumble to
dust. But if we work upon men's immortal minds, if we imbue them
with high principles, with the just fear of God and love of their
fellow men, we engrave on those tablets something which no time
can efface, and which will brighten and brighten to all eternity.